Up to 500 people dying each week from emergency care delays, doctor says

Up to 500 people are dying every week because of delays in emergency care, Britain’s top accident and emergency doctor has said.

Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said a bad flu season was compounding systemic problems, leading to hundreds of unnecessary deaths.

NHS leaders warned last week that the health service is in the grip of a “twindemic”, with soaring flu admissions and the impact of Covid “hitting staff hard”.

Dr Boyle told Times Radio: “If you look at the graphs they all are going the wrong way, and I think there needs to be a real reset. We need to be in a situation where we cannot just shrug our shoulders and say this winter was terrible, let’s do nothing until next winter.

“We need to increase our capacity within our hospitals, we need to make sure that there are alternative ways so that people aren’t all just funnelled into the ambulance service and emergency department. We cannot continue like this – it is unsafe and it is undignified.”

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Source: The Telegraph, 1 January 2023